MLB.com's Carrie Muskat has been covering Major League Baseball since 1981 and is the author of "Banks to Sandberg to Grace: Five Decades of Love and Frustration with the Cubs." You can follow her on Twitter @CarrieMuskat. Here, she blogs about the Cubs.

Results tagged ‘ Gerald Perry ’

The Cubs will bring their entire coaching staff back for 2010 with the exception of hitting coach Von Joshua. GM Jim Hendry says Joshua didn’t do anything wrong, but there wasn’t significant improvement. That, Hendry said, prompted him to look for someone else.

Joshua, who was the Triple-A Iowa hitting coach, had taken over the big league job on June 14, replacing Gerald Perry, who was fired.

“There’s no blame to be handed out,” Hendry said. “We had a lot of guys who didn’t swing the bats like they’re capable of. When Von came up, we were scuffling, and we never made a lot of progress in the same areas that we were deficient in the first half.”

The Cubs finished with a team .255 batting average, 12th in the National League. They struggled this season to deliver with runners in scoring position, and scored 707 runs. Last year, the Cubs led the NL with 855 runs scored.

On Saturday, the right field bleacher fans were still buzzing over Milton Bradley’s gaffes the day before. They taunted him in the second inning, chanting, “Mil-ton, Mil-ton.” Bradley played along and waved his right arm in unison with the crowd. They resumed the chant in the top of the fourth.

On Sunday, after Bradley caught Justin Morneau’s fly ball in the first inning for the second out, he signaled “two outs” to the fans. Bradley was just having fun.

He may be the one most affected by the departure of hitting coach Gerald Perry, who was fired on Sunday. The two had worked together in Oakland, and were very close.

The Cubs fired hitting coach Gerald Perry on Sunday and will promote Triple-A Iowa hitting coach Von Joshua to take over the job. Joshua will join the Cubs Monday, and be in uniform for Tuesday’s Interleague game between the Cubs and White Sox.

The Cubs were ranked 13th in the National League in hitting with a .246 average, well below last year’s numbers. They led the NL in runs in 2008, but are 14th this season.

“Obviously, we’ve been struggling for a long time,” Hendry said. “I’m not one to dump all the blame on coaches. I’ve never made a coaching change to my knowledge in the middle of the year. I think sometimes you need a different voice.

“Von has had a lot of success with our guys on the way up,” he said. “We have really, really struggled offensively for reasons way beyond Aramis [Ramirez] being gone for awhile. Every day, we have five guys in the lineup who have played in the All-Star Game. For whatever reason, they are not performing anywhere close to where they’ve performed in their careers. Sometimes you have to try something different, and sometimes it’s a different voice maybe saying the same things.

“I never feel good about a coach taking the blame for the failures of our ballclub,” he said.

Perry was at Wrigley Field on Sunday, and taking part in batting practice when he was called off the field around 11 a.m. CT and into the clubhouse to talk to Hendry.

Joshua is in his fourth year at Iowa, and has been a hitting coach since 1984.

“He’s got a good way about him and probably a different approach,” Hendry said. “He’s done very well with us at Triple-A.”

* Several of the Cubs took early hitting at Busch Stadium. They’re averaging seven runs in their 21 wins, and 2.3 runs a game in their 16 losses this year.

“Look, until we get some of these batting averages up, forget how many runs we’re averaging,” Lou Piniella said. “You don’t score runs with smoke and mirrors. Basically, you’ve got to get these averages up and on-base percentages up, and then you can start looking at how many runs you score and don’t score.”

The Cubs were a good hitting team last year.

“You always have a few people struggling but not four or five in a lineup,” Piniella said. “When that improves, then you’ll see our offense pick up and do things with a lot more consistency.”

Milton Bradley is one of those who are struggling. He’s batting .188. Piniella did talk to hitting coach Gerald Perry about Bradley.

“These guys are working,” Piniella said. “Extra work is not a problem. It’s just a question of taking it on the field and doing it there. Like me, I hit the ball on the practice range pretty well. I can’t wait to play a round of golf and I always shoot 90. You’ve got to take it on the course.”

* Aaron Miles is trying to change his luck. He was clean shaven on Wednesday, the first time in two years he does not have a mustache or goatee. “That’s what we’re looking for — a superstitious change,” Miles said.

* Iowa outfielder Brad Snyder will be out four to six weeks with a fractured left wrist.

Here’s Friday’s Cubs lineup: SS Ryan Theriot, CF Reed Johnson, 1B Micah Hoffpauir, DH Jason Dubois, C Geovany Soto, 2B Mike Fontenot, LF Doug Deeds, 3B Luis Rivas, RF So Taguchi. Ted Lilly will start, his only Cactus League tuneup before he leaves for Florida to join Team USA. It also could be Soto’s last Cactus League game before he departs to join the Puerto Rican team to prepare for the World Baseball Classic.

Cubs hitting coach Gerald Perry may be back. He had left the team to be with family following the death of his father.

Brian Schlitter was eating breakfast in his Park Ridge, Ill., home when he got a phone call from the Cubs. There was an opening and the team wanted to know if he was ready to report to spring camp early. Are you kidding? “I didn’t know why they were calling but I’m glad I answered,” he said. It took the right-handed pitcher about two hours to pack, and he was on his way. He lives three blocks from Cubs general manager Jim Hendry, but that had nothing to do with the call. In fact, Schlitter said he didn’t even know there was a “Jim Hendry Way” in Park Ridge, designated late last year, until a couple weeks ago.

Other news on Saturday:

Jeff Samardzija will start Wednesday’s Cactus League opener against the Dodgers.

International scouts Steve Wilson, a former Cubs pitcher, was in camp with scouts from South Korea and the Czech Republic to look at the way spring camp is run. Wilson used to coach Cubs pitcher Ryan Dempster in the basement of a sporting goods store in Vancouver, B.C.

Condolences to Cubs hitting coach Gerald Perry, whose father passed away on Friday. Perry will be absent to tend to his family.

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